I'm David Friedman, a professional photographer who sometimes gets ideas for photos, designs, gadgets, and other projects. I write about it all on this blog. You can find the meaning behind the name “Ironic Sans” back in the very first post.

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You are reading an entry from the Ironic Sans archive. This entry was posted on March 31, 2010 and is filed under
Ideas,
Technology.

March 31, 2010

Idea: A new kind of volume control

A few weeks ago, I thought to myself, “Hey, someone should make a volume control that doesn’t go from ‘quiet’ to ‘loud’ but instead adjusts the audio from ‘whisper’ to ‘shout’.”

That lead to, “Maybe I can actually build that. It could be funny.”

Then I thought, “I should use the new HTML5 <audio> element. It’s timely. And it’s a good chance for me to learn how it works.”

Then I thought, “But what should I use as the audio sample? I know, I’ll use a recording of myself reciting ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb,’ as homage to Thomas Edison. Because what I’m doing is clearly as revolutionary as what he did.”

Next thing I knew, I was recording myself shouting ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb,’ wondering if the neighbors could hear me, and feeling rather silly. The more I worked on it, the more absurd the whole idea seemed.

But I got it working. Sort of. It only works in Firefox. So,with apologies to people who don’t use Firefox, or aren’t willing to fire it up just for a laugh, here is my revolutionary new audio player that adjusts the volume from “whisper” to “shout”:

Glad you found the code for Jaraoke useful! I managed to get Chrome over its fits by ensuring that ogg files weren’t getting gzipped server side. Give that a shot and I’d imagine this’ll work in Chrome as well.

also consider a low pitch/high pitch control for the computer (or does one already exist?) As my audiologist will attest, high frequency sounds usually go first. Before getting a hearing aid I just turned up the treble on our TV to help clarify spoken words.